One text can destroy your life
Me: Watchadoin?
Hubby: Want to fuck?
What? We hadn’t had sex in nine years the day I sent that text, so I was shocked by his reply. He’d never even write something like that when we were having sex.
What was happening? I asked myself.
When I traveled, I would often text hub in the evenings. He usually didn’t want to talk on the phone, so we wouldn’t unless there was something to tell.
A chill passed over me as I looked at his answer. I’d texted my lover instead of hubby. What if that went the other way?
Jesus, I thought, that mistake is just too easy.
It was a rookie mistake, and I got off lucky.
We’ve all texted the wrong person. It’s easy. You’re distracted, a thought pops into your mind, and you fire it off. Most times, the result is something like:
Is that for me?
Mom!
What?
And from there, you apologize and redirect. When you text your spouse something meant for your lover, it might not be so easy.
I’ve sent my son a good morning message meant for my lover. It was a simple,
Good morning sweetie
He didn’t respond. Mostly because he rarely responds, but in that case, he slept well past noon and probably thought it was a joke. Sometimes I’ll text him stupid things to keep him on his toes.
I’ve sent hub the wrong text too.
Nothing, going to walk the dog later.
Fairly innocuous, but hub hadn’t asked me what I was doing; my lover had. I’m not sure why I made that error, but I probably wasn’t paying attention when I answered. Stupidly, I covered it up with a quick follow up –
Me — For Jack
Me — sorry, that was for Jack, lol
Hub — what?
Me — that last text, it was for Jack. I didn’t mean to send it to you, sorry. I was just letting you know.
Hub — ok, thanks.
It just so happened our son wasn’t working that day, and I’ve been home since the pandemic started. But what if he hadn’t been home?
There’s not much you can do once the text is sent, but there are a couple of things you can do to avoid sending a text that will get you in trouble.
What to do before you send ‘THE TEXT’
First, never begin a conversation with something sexy or include emojis you wouldn’t send to anyone else.
Start with something generic, so if you get a weird response from the wrong person, you can say it was for someone else. It’s easier to explain —
Hey, whatchadoin?
than,
Hey, sexy, what are you wearing? Flame emoji, heart emoji, peach emoji, splash emoji X3
Once your lover responds and you know who you’re texting, you can go ahead and get sexy.
I’ll often send my lover a nude after my bath in the evening to keep him going when we’ve not seen each other. I’ve never sent hubby a nude, so imagine explaining why I took one, let alone sent it to him. He’s not even interested in the real thing.
Because there’re a couple of steps involved in sending a picture, you get a little more time to think about what you’re doing, but that doesn’t mean you won’t make a mistake.
The steps help, but be extra careful sending sexy pics.
Be Deliberate
The key is to be deliberate every time you send a text, but that’s a lot harder than it sounds.
I once finished a story and texted a draft to my lover to see what he thought. Once I pasted the story into the text field, there were some trailing spaces that I decided to delete. As I was doing that, I happened to glance at the To field, and yup, I almost sent hub my dirty story.
He’s never read one, though he knows I write erotica. My pinky had just moved from the backspace key to the enter key when noticed.
I once again felt a chill.
Since then, I’ve been double-checking, but god, I was so close and it’s so easy.
After you’ve sent “THE TEXT”
When the cat’s out of the bag, there’s still things you can do.
First, DON’T PANIC.
When I told hub the dog-walk text I’d sent was for our son it was out of panic. I panicked because of who the text was for, not because of what it said. And because I panicked, I immediately began overexplaining myself.
Hub never responded to my initial text, so my flurry of follow-ups confused him when he saw them. That lead to more explaining.
Nothing was incriminating, but my guilty mind drove my reaction. My mistake didn’t need three or four more texts to explain, and anyone would have seen that.
Just as with a lie, never over explain yourself if you make a text error. Over explaining raises suspicion where there was none. Overexplaining draws attention to the fact you were worried about who you sent the text to.
Consider, the fact no one would actually be freaked by sending a boring text to hub instead of your son. They wouldn’t be.
Of course not, and a suspicious person might notice your misplaced reaction. Especially if you’ve given them reasons to suspect you.
Remember, little clues add up — an odd reaction to a text, a story that doesn’t quite fit last week, not being where you’d said you’d be a month ago.
The more clues you give away, the greater your chance of getting caught.
Now, if you overreact and your text was questionable, they’ll know you’re hiding something.
The best play
Don’t do anything when you realize you’ve texted or sexted the wrong person.
Instead, let them respond first so you can work off their tone and reaction. Play dumb.
What? Oh
OMG! Sorry! That was for Sarah
He knows it was for someone else, but who that someone else is might save you. An easy go-to is your wingman. Tell him you and your girlfriend were joking around about something and were riffing off it as a joke.
Tell him you were sending each other cheesy texts for fun.
Tell her is a gay joke you’ve got running with a buddy and that you sometimes send each other sexy things to get each other in shit. Put it down to a locker room prank.*
*(yes, I realize this is homophobic and I don’t condone it, but when you’re a cheater, you are pretty much a piece of shit who will do anything to save yourself.)
If they don’t seem to be buying it, and you have time, try to recreate that conversation with your wingman on your phone so that you can show it to him.
Just so you know, you’re in trouble if you think a recreated conversation might save you, but if that’s all you’ve got, go with it.
Avoiding it works too
If you know you’re going to mix a text up, start sending your spouse the odd sexy or romantic text with a couple of sweet or loving emojis in it. Send a nude now and again.
Start slowly and keep that up, so when you make a mistake, it won’t look out of place. If you do this, you can hide your mistake in plain view because it won’t look like a mistake.
This way, if you send it to your kid in error, you can legit say it was for dad. They’ll love that, the poor creatures.
To be successful here, you need to have the sort of relationship with your spouse that will allow the odd nude or sext. And you probably don’t, because you’re having an affair.
Consider that before sending wifey a dic pic.
For my lover and I, the Whatchadoin text has become a running joke. We’ll text it to each other every so often when we want to chat.
Whatchadoin?
It better be texting your affair partner carefully, because one text can destroy your life, if you aren’t careful.
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© Teresa J. Conway, 2020
By Teresa J Conway on .
Exported from Medium on April 8, 2021.
